


World Enough and Time

by The_Grynne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2011-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-19 12:05:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Grynne/pseuds/The_Grynne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is dying. No, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	World Enough and Time

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you might think I am judging Shanghai a little harshly in this. Well, I'm Shanghainese, so I'm allowed to. If somebody else tried it, I would probably come down on them like a ton of bricks.

_Tell the stars I'm coming,  
make them leave a space for me..._

\- Paddy McAloon, "I Trawl the Megahertz"

  
**World Enough and Time**

 _Let's go, now. No more of this hanging around, no more waiting, no more. Get me out of here, you morbid fuck. Now, Eames. Let's._

 _Go, let's go, take me back._

*

You know heat like this, from Singapore, from Kuala Lumpur. Air like molasses, a heaviness in the shoulders, tacky eyelashes webbed by humidity. 

These streets are not new; you've walked their pebbled cousins in Hanoi, in Nagoya. The same tea houses, jade dragons and red paper lanterns can be found, at a smaller scale but with no less flamboyance, in Los Angeles, Melbourne, Manchester. The skyscrapers of Dubai are every bit as impressive as the needles of steel and glass that lie across the Yangtze, their crowns touching the clouds, shrouded by rain, their feet crouched in lazy smog. 

Some winters, Eames says, it snows in Shanghai. It isn't snowing now, but you can imagine it. The pristine white of the gutters and pavements at dawn, short-lived, soon to be reclaimed by motor fumes, cement dust and the grease of a million frying pans.

The part of the city that contains the British Consulate General, where Eames was stationed for ten months, is charming in a post-colonial way. White stucco mansions, now converted to gallery and workshop space for architects, violin makers, interior designers. A cafe or boulangerie on every corner; you stop at one of them for some coffee (too milky) and brioche (too sweet). In the open air, braving the unpredictable July storms, a dozen identical navy blue towels are hanging on a line rigged between trees in front of a hairdressing salon.

This is the day that I got my promotion, Eames says. And there was a hurricane warning that night along the coast.

And were they right? you ask, before changing your mind. No, don't tell me.

You walk a couple of blocks south towards Huaihai Lu, keeping to the speckled shade afforded by roadside platanes. It is a little after three in the afternoon, and crossing Changle Lu, hands in pockets, eagerly leading the way, Eames is knocked off his feet by a young woman on a motorcycle. She yells out, _Hei, dangxin!_ Swerves but doesn't stop, and you notice the small child in school uniform dangling precariously from the back of the vehicle.

That's never happened before, Eames says, dazed, as you help him up. One leg of his linen pants is now filthy; you hesitate to inspect too closely the cause of the wet, spreading stain. Eames winces when he catches sight of the blood and scraped gravel on his palms.

You're an endangerment to my physical wellbeing, Arthur, is what you are.

You run a hand through his hair slowly, disheveling it a little more, and touch a finger to the center of his lower lip. Projections are starting to stare; you ignore them, feeling his mouth widen beneath your hand in an offhand smirk that is at least partly self-directed. There, now you recognise him. That's the man you'll eventually come to know.

We have about six hours left on the timer, you say. Let's do something else you haven't done here before.

I can think of a few things, Eames says, and kisses you, his hand in yours.

*

 _The future?_

 _Don't taunt me with dreams of futures. What is waiting after a lifetime spent in limbo? For me, the hospital bed. For you, the real world, which from then on will never be enough._

 _And if I cannot share your future, give me instead your past - all the years before you knew me, all the years we stayed apart. Give me a place in your London and your Cambridge, your Dakar and Shanghai. Remember me with all the trickery and softness of nostalgia. Only remember me, how I was with you, and would have always been with you, if I had the chance to do it all again._

THE END

 _16 May 2011_   



End file.
